1. Field of the Invention
The technical field is stiff-in-plane rotors for rotary-wing aircraft.
2. Description of Related Art
Rotor assemblies for rotary-wing aircraft, such as helicopters and tiltrotors, have many configurations. The Bell/Boeing V-22 tiltrotor, for example, has a gimbaled hub, allowing the entire hub to gimbal relative to the mast during flapping while the blades remain in a fixed in-plane orientation relative to the hub. Other rotary-wing aircraft have fully or semi-articulated configurations, in which blades are allowed to flap relative to the hub and may move through in-plane lead-lag motions relative to the hub.
Though some prior-art rotor assemblies have been successful, many shortcomings remain.